Today she tells how the London flat where she was playing with a friend was gutted by an inferno while she and her sister were trapped.

She says if it hadn’t been for her brave sister’s quick thinking she would have been burned alive.

“I was four and my big sister Vicky was only five but she saved me from the worst kind of death and she has the scars to prove it,” said Michelle, 50. “The ­Corrie storyline has brought it all back clearer than ever. We both could have died.

“We lived with Mum on the bottom floor of a tall townhouse that was broken up into flats. We used to go and play with a little boy who lived upstairs.

“It was soon after Vicky’s birthday and she’d brought her cards to show him.I don’t know whether there was an argument or he was just being horrible but he was playing with a box of matches and suddenly started setting fire to the cards.

“I remember her pulling me away from the flames but the boy’s mum made feather hats for a living, which were stuck together with paraffin glue. That stuff is highly flammable and suddenly one of them went up in flames too.

“Soon the fire was all up the walls and catching the furniture. I remember the unbearable heat of the flames as they spread and the speed with which the whole room started blazing.

“I was terrified. It was so hot and full of smoke but we were stuck because there was no way out... we couldn’t see.

Inferno: Rovers Return goes up in flames (Photo: ITV)

“I’ll never forget that feeling of being trapped. It was horrific.

“Vicky dragged me over to the corner of the room where she made me get down on my hands and knees and shelter under a little table. I was scared but I trusted her so I did as she said.

“She told me to stay there while she went to get help. But before she got back firemen arrived and carried me out through the flames. I assumed Vicky had told them where to find me.

“It was only out in the street where my mum was waiting that I realised my sister was still inside. She’d tried to get help to me but got stuck in the flames.

“Another man who lived in the building put a wet towel over his head and went back in for her and dragged her out. We were both very lucky and I still hate thinking about how it could have ended.”

Michelle’s brush with death at such a young age meant she developed a fear of fire. “From that day I was really paranoid about anything to do with fire but somehow it seems to have followed me around like a curse ever since.

“I was at school a couple of years later and our classroom was set alight while we prepared for our nativity play.

“Then when I was in my 20s, I was in a play called Burning Point at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn which burned down the morning after opening night.

“I remember the charred remains, ­sitting on the floor where the ­dressing rooms should have been, just crying.

“After that I tried to convince myself I’d had my three bits of bad luck when it came to fire, but I’m still really cautious about it. It’s my only fear. I’m fine with heights and flying. I’m a professional so I just throw myself into it.

“But when it comes to candles and matches I’m really frightened. I don’t like being too close to open fires, barbecues or bonfires. It’s something that’s deep inside me now.”

Burnt into her memory: Scenes for tomorrow night's episode brought back the horror (Photo: ITV)

Before Christmas last year, when soap chiefs told Michelle that Stella was going to be left fighting for her life after a major fire, her anxieties came to the surface.

She says: “The director started to tell me what the scenes would involve but I didn’t want to know too much beforehand. I knew it would have to involve real fire because Corrie always does things as realistically as possible.

“Back home that night the horrors of the fire when I was a child came rushing back. But I knew I had to face my fear.

“I’m an actress, it’s my job. So I decided to give it a go.”

The fire episode took six weeks to shoot and was directed by Tony Prescott, who also orchestrated the famous tram crash in 2010.

“It was like being part of a Hollywood movie. All the special effects and everything are so amazing. We used a real controlled fire in an old warehouse in Trafford, which was absolutely horrendous.

“Because of all the fumes we had to wear masks when we weren’t on camera and a lot of the time the flames were only about two feet away from me.

“I was being dragged around like a rag doll covered in soot from head to toe, so it was really challenging. The heat was so intense and at one point even the stuntman said, ‘I didn’t realise it was going to be that close!’

“In one scene, Stella is trying to get down the stairs with fire everywhere but she’s trapped and can’t get down. That was really tough because it brought my own experiences flooding back. I was terrified.

“But it looks incredible though, so I’m ­really glad I did.”

And Michelle says after everything her character has been through: “It’ll take more than a fire to get rid of Stella!”